Over the past month, California Governor Gavin Newsom has been making headlines for all the right reasons: he's led an effort to respond to Texas Republicans' push to further gerrymander their state, used his profile to pressure Border Patrol and ICE, and found a very effective-and hilarious-way to get under Trump's skin through his Press Office's parodies of the president's writing style. All of these actions have catapulted him to national stardom, where he's taken on the role of leading the fight against the Trump administration.
However, to the trans community, his rise only brings fear. Because before these developments, he was trying to win over potential voters in a very different way: by abandoning the LGBTQ+ community.
In the United States, California has long had a reputation. And not just for its stereotyped sunny weather, surfer culture, and affluent, snobby culture, but for its liberal politics as well. California Democrats are synonymous-especially in more Republican-leaning areas-with the liberal style of politics conservatives detest. It's so difficult to overcome that despite California's large population and plethora of Democratic figures with a national profile, of the three presidents from California, none of them have been Democrats.
Evidently, Newsom is facing an uphill battle. So he's set off to appear more palatable to conservatives, starting with LGBTQ+ issues. Beginning in 2024, he started attempting to suppress pro-LGBTQ+ bills while they were still in the legislature in order to keep him from having to either veto them-losing progressives-or sign them-angering conservatives. Then, he went public with his new opinions during a conversation with Charlie Kirk on his podcast earlier this year, calling trans athletes' participation in girls' and women's sports 'deeply unfair.' And more recently, he signalled he changed his stance on gender-affirming care for minors as well.
Not as fussed with high school stuff although if it means getting into a team to do something professionally then yes that matters.
Professionally it absolutely matters with all the advantages a trans female would have from being born male. There either needs to a trans category or they suck it up and don't compete.
Oh hey, it's my area of expertise and I've got some strong feelings so pardon the wall of text! This discussion tends to immediately focus on professional athletes and I think that's doing everyone a disservice. Exceedingly few people are professional athletes, especially trans folk. Elite athletes have fundamentally different reasons to pursue their sport, and are closer to the genetic limits of their performance. I can see some value in accounting for broad genetic differences at that level of competition, but sex is far from the only genetic factor and in many sports it isn't the most relevant. It's not even like men are favored over women in every sport. Muscle mass and cardiovascular capacity advantages tend to favor men in most sports, but women can be favored over men in ultra-endurance sports due to advantages in fat metabolism and pain tolerance.
In fencing, for instance, men and women tend to be pretty equally matched. Broad average differences in explosive acceleration, balance, etc exist between the sexes, but it's possible to account for these things through bladework and strategy in all but the highest elite levels. Know what you can't really do jack-shit about? Reach! If someone's a head taller than you, has a lankier build, and longer arms, it is incredibly difficult to get in range before they can hit you. Practice tends to be co-ed, with men and women performing equally, but for some reason fencing tournaments are split between men and women. It's clear in both divisions that the lankier, taller people have an inherent genetic advantage. Why is sex considered the "more important" primary category? Why is this assumed to be the case in every sport? The science really does not back this up.
But again, that's all just about high-level competitive athletes, a tiny tiny tiny fraction of a fraction of people. What's the real value of sports for the rest of us, especially kids? Community, recreation, exercise, developing motor skills. Among the general population, the variation in skill level far exceeds genetic differences to the point that gendered divisions outside the most elite level just doesn't make much sense to begin with. With this in mind, and considering how seldom few of us are athletes in the first place, does it not make sense for trans women to just be able to play in the division we socially fit in better with?
I haven't even gotten into the long-term outlook for trans athletes on HRT, that's a much longer discussion. But do consider that sports science (and human movement more broadly) isn't a solved field. We're just now getting over the "functional training" craze, itself a reaction to origin-insertion anatomy which did not properly model how multi-joint movements work. We're just now coming to a better understanding of fascia, which plays a much more important role in motion than we understood and is very responsive to sex hormones. A majority of the systems involved in motion are ones where trans women are more alike to cis women than cis men. I won't say there's no differences at all, but it's more nuanced than you'd think.
The number of cis women athletes (Imane Khelif being a notable example) harassed because people suspect them of being transgender goes to show how insane this is getting. Cis bodies are incredibly varied, in that context trans bodies are really not that different.
How about wealth divisions? Should the advantage affluent athletes have over working class athletes be identified and excised?
Also, good luck forming a "trans league" with all the trans athletes in the nation.